Aspects of both philosophical and religious Taoism were appropriated in East Asian cultures influenced by China, especially Korea, Japan, and Vietnam.

Taoism can also be called "the other way," for during its entire history, it has coexisted alongside the Confucian tradition, which served as the ethical and religious basis of the institutions and arrangements of the Chinese empire.

While in fundamental ways such a goal was incompatible with the aims of philosophicalTaoism, there were hints in the texts of the philosophical tradition to the extension of life and the protection from harm possible for those in harmony with the Tao.

Religious Taoism was started when Chiang Ling claimed that he had received a revelation from Lao Tzu which instructed him to implement Lao Tzu's "orthodox and sole doctrine of the authority of the covenant." Upon his death, it is said that Chiang Ling ascended to Heaven where he earned the title Heavenly Master.

In the United States the impact of Taoism is significant in the fields of acupuncture, holistic medicine, herbalism, meditation, and the martial arts.

The effects of Taoism can be seen in American culture in various holistic approaches to medicine such as acupuncture and herbalism, certain exercises and martial arts such as Tai-chi, and other art forms such as feng-shui.

The Quanzhen school of Taoism was founded during this period, and together with the Zhengyi Celestial Masters is one of the two schools of Taoism that have survived to the present.

Taoism is one of five religions recognised by the PRC, which insists on controlling its activities through a state bureaucracy (the ChinaTaoist Association).

In the TangperiodTaoism incorporated such Buddhistelements as monasteries, vegetarianism, prohibition of alcohol, the celibacy of the clergy, the doctrine of emptiness, and the amassing of a vast collection of scripture into tripartite organisation.

en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Taoism (5332 words)

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This definition points to the complexity of questions that surround the status of Taoism and its relation to Chinese religion; it is also relevant to its relation to Chinese thought, for the status of Taoism as a religion was often defined with reference to ideas and notions formulated in its early doctrinal texts.

Taoism is one of several traditions that have drawn upon correlative cosmology to formulate its views and to frame its techniques or practices.

In Taoism, correlative cosmology serves not only to explicate the functioning of the cosmos, but also to illustrate the notion that single entities and phenomena ultimately originate from the Dao, and that the different forms in the world of multiplicity are governed by the One, the principle of the unity of the cosmos.

AD, Taoism was a fully developed religious system with many features adopted from Mahayana Buddhism, offering emotional religious satisfaction to those who found the largely ethical system of Confucianism inadequate.

Taoism is still practiced to some degree in modern China, as well as in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao and in communities of Chinese who have emigrated.

Taoism is a beautiful religion, actually it is a "predecessor of Christianity", but the one most misunderstood, because for its symbol is used the dualistic anagram of the Yin and Yang, born 1,500 years before Taoism.

Taoism's focus on nature and the natural order complements the societal focus of Confucianism, and its synthesis with Buddhism is the basis of Zen.

Taoism, was founded in the 604 BC in China by Lao-Tze, which means "old philosopher" or "old boy", but his real name was Li-Uhr.

Religious Taoism appropriated earlier interest and belief in alchemy and the search for the elixir of life and the philosophers stone.

A.D., Taoism was a fully developed religious system with many features adopted from Mahayana Buddhism, offering emotional religious satisfaction to those who found the largely ethical system of Confucianism inadequate.

Taoism is still practiced to some degree in modern China, as well as in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao and in communities of Chinese who have emigrated.

Dao, or Taoism, as it is often known in the West, is a belief system with folk religion roots in China popularized by the philosopher Laozi in the 5th century B.C.E. It has taken many forms throughout the centuries, coexisting with Confucianism and Buddhism.

Taoism was understood and practiced in many ways, each reflecting the historical, social, or personal situation of its adherents.

In a larger sense, since Taoism functioned in imperial China as a retreat and withdrawal from the struggles of the political arena, one might say that in a very general way the current relaxation of political pressure in reaction against the excesses of the Gang of Four represents a Taoistic phase of Chinese Maoism.

Taoism is the second of the three state religions (San-kiao) of China.

In other words, Taoism is the Religion of Heaven and Earth, of the Cosmos, of the World or Nature in the broadest sense of these words.

Besides the "Tao-teh-king" a good many works treat of Taoism: the "Yin-fu-king-kiai" which professes to be an exposition of the oldest Taoist record in existence; "Ts'ing-tsing-king" (The Book of Purity and Rest); the "T'ai-hsi-king" (Respiration of the Embryo); the "T'ai-shang-Kan-ying-pien" (Tractate of Actions and their Retributions).

Taoism in Vietnam became a richly textured religion of gods, super heroes and ghosts, and it integrated shamanism, agricultural religious beliefs, ancestor worship and the worship of heroes, especially the guardian spirit of the village.

www.mtholyoke.edu /~koivanov/taoism.htm (1052 words)

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Taoist adepts, as we shall call the practitioners of the second kind of Taoism because all who were engaged in training programs, were not willing to settle for the philosophical goal of managing their allotments of Tao efficiently.

Philosophical Taoism sought to manage life's normal quotient of the Tao efficiently, and vitalizing Taoism sought to raise the quotient but something was lacking.

Much of religious Taoism looks like crude superstition, but we must remember we have little idea what energy is, how it proceeds or the means by which (and extent to which) it can be augmented.

www.spiritsoars.homestead.com /Taoism.html (1040 words)

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The founder of Taoism was Lao-Tse (604-531 BCE), a contemporary of Confucius.

Taoism started as a combination of psychology and philosophy but evolved into a religion in 440 CE when it was adopted as a state religion.

Taoism currently has about 20 million followers, and is primarily centered in Taiwan.

Taoism is believed to have originated in China with a man named Lao Tzuat around 500 B.C. The legend says that Lao Tzu was so "saddened by his people's disinclination to cultivate the natural goodness he advocated" that he decided to abandon civilization.

Long before the schools of Confucianism and Taoism developed, Chinese thinkers had already formulated a cosmic theory of a cyclic pattern of waxing and waning, of expansion and contraction.

This the relationship of Confucianism to Taoism is itself an example of the yang-yin interplay of dynamic opposites.

Later Taoism: The aim of mystical and spiritual "immortality" of participation in the eternal sought by the early Taoists gradually gave way (in popular practice) to a pragmatic concern for longevity or even physical immortality.

www.usao.edu /~usao-ids3313/ids/html/taoism.html (1823 words)

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Taoism is one of the two major indigenous religio-philosophical traditions that has shaped Chinese life for more than 2,000 years.

Taoism "celebrates a kind of agrarian lifestyle where people are very much in tune with nature - trees, grass and growing things," points out Smith.

In Taoism, the yinyang symbol represents the unity of apparent opposites in the universe.

Chuang-tse, a later disciple of Taoism (about 300 B.C.) believed that reformers and moralists who came preaching purity and goodness were "chasing their own shadows," a figure to compulsive striving and antithetical to the spirit of Taoism.

Taoism did not escape this and so later followers became extreme and fanatical in their search for meaning.

The founder of Taoism was Lao-Tse (604-531 BCE) Taoist Beliefs and Practices: Tao is the first-cause of the universe.

Taoism advocates a minimum of government intervention, relying instead on individual development to reach a natural harmony under Tao's leading.

The practitioners of Taoism and those who are influenced by its philosophy include environmentalists, naturalists, libertarians, wildlife protectors, natural food advocates or vegetarians, and many physicists.